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How does PolitiFact Georgia’s Truth-O-Meter work?
Our goal is to help you find the truth in American politics. Reporters from The Atlanta Journal-Constitution fact-check statements by local, state and national political leaders, including lobbyists and interest groups. We then rate them on the AJC Truth-O-Meter.
To fact-check a claim, reporters first contact the speaker to verify the statement. Next, the research begins. Reporters consult a variety of sources, including industry and academic experts. This research can take hours or a few days or even longer, depending on the claim. Reporters then compile the research into story form and include a recommended Truth-O-Meter ruling.
The fact check then moves on to a panel of veteran editors who debate the statement and the reporter’s recommended Truth-O-Meter ruling. The panel votes on a final ruling; majority prevails.
PolitiFact Georgia kicked off an occasional series last week spotlighting fact-checks of what's likely to be a record field of Republican candidates and a smaller offering of Democrat candidates for president in 2016. The series began last Monday with Jeb Bush when he formally announced his candidacy in Miami.
This Monday, we’ll catch readers up on some of the many fact-checks we’ve done on Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton.
John Podesta, Clinton’s campaign chairman, made it into last week’s fact-checks with a claim that the former secretary has been clear on her position on the proposed Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) trade agreement. We also looked at claims that 97 percent of Americans do not receive subsidies for health care under the Affordable Care Act and that 47 percent of Americans “can’t pay for an unexpected $400 expense through savings or credit cards, without selling something or borrowing money.”
Abbreviated versions of our fact checks are below.
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Full versions can be found at www.politifact.com/georgia/
John Podesta on Sunday, June 14th, 2015 in comments on NBC’s “Meet the Press”
Says Hillary Clinton’s “been very clear where she stands on trade.”
Critics have accused former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton of taking a vague position in the debate over the proposed Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) trade agreement,
Supporters say there’s nothing mystifying about the Democratic president candidate’s position.
“She’s been very clear on where she stands on trade, ” Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta explained to Meet the Press’ Chuck Todd.
PolitiFact decide to check.
To a certain extent, Clinton has laid out where she stands on trade in general. But she has avoided saying whether she definitively supports the pending deal and the fast-track trade authority many believe is necessary to make the deal happen.
Clinton has avoided answering whether she supports grants Obama fast-track trade promotion authority, which is seen as the linchpin to cutting a trade deal in Asia.
Clinton has said what she would like in an ideal trade deal in terms of the Trans-Pacific Partnership. But she has yet to say definitively whether or not Obama’s pending trade deal meets her standards — though she has admitted some provisions could use improvement. This is a change from just a couple years ago, when she seemed more supportive of the pending trade deal.
Does any of this sound “very clear” to you? We’ll concede a little wiggle room based on Podesta’s wording. But that’s about it.
We rated this claim Mostly False.
Austin Scott on Friday, June 5th, 2015
Ninety-seven percent of Americans do not receive subsidies for health care under the Affordable Care Act.
About 6.4 million people in Georgia and 33 other states who use the federal marketplace could be at risk of losing a total of $1.7 billion in monthly tax credits, depending on how the Supreme Court rules later this month in the closely watched case of ed lawsuit, King v. Burwell.
Many in the GOP, particularly Tea Party Republicans, are likely to resist extending the subsidies, even temporarily, if the court sides with King and against the subsidies, The Washington Times reported June 5.
Those Republicans are much more worried about angering their base by appearing to concede on Obamacare than they are about having a handful of constituents lose their subsidies, the newspaper said..
“Ninety-seven percent of Americans aren’t receiving those subsidies,” Georgia Congressman Austin Scott told reporters.
That statistic caught the eye of a PolitiFact reader who asked us to do some checking.
Chris Lee, a communications officer with the foundation, said about 2.7 percent of Americans receive ACA tax credits.
His calculation is based on information that slightly more than 8.6 million of the nation’s 321 million residents have received advance premium tax credits, or subsidies, to buy their insurance, Lee said.
That would mean about 97.3 percent of Americans aren’t receiving subsidies to buy insurance. That’s roughly the number Scott gave us.
We rated Scott’s statement as True.
Hunter Schwarz on Monday, June 8th, 2015 in a “Washington Post” article
Forty-seven percent of Americans “can’t pay for an unexpected $400 expense through savings or credit cards, without selling something or borrowing money.”
Washington Post reporter Hunter Schwarz plugged some Fed data into a little segment called “By the numbers”, in the newspaper’s June 8, 2015, edition:
“47: The percentage of Americans who can’t pay for an unexpected $400 expense through savings or credit cards, without selling something or borrowing money, according to the Federal Reserve.”
The dollar figure caught our eye. It seemed surprisingly low. Other researchers have tried to gauge the financial vulnerability of American households to an economic setback, but typically, the amounts they test are much higher, in the thousands of dollars.
We thought we’d take a closer look.
Schwarz said 47 percent of Americans can’t pay for an unexpected $400 expense through savings or credit cards, without selling something or borrowing money.
The only caveat here, and it’s a very minor one, is that figure represents the number of people who say they can’t make that payment, based on a Federal Reserve Board survey. The Federal Reserve Board results are in line with a similar study and related research.
We rated the claim True.
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